Israel “Far Worse” Than Apartheid South Africa

Israel “Far Worse” Than Apartheid South
Africa

The situation
for Arabs in Israel & Palestine is “far worse” than that of
the blacks in what was apartheid South Africa. This was
Ronnie Kasrils’ response to the question of whether Israel
could be compared to South Africa during its apartheid era.
He offered this during a speech he gave at an international
conference I attended on Palestine, Israel and International
Law at the Institute of Education in London last
weekend.

Ronnie Kasrils, who
happens to be a Jew, was active in the fight against
apartheid in South Africa from the 60’s onwards. He became a
military leader around the time the ANC concluded that the
methods of non-violence such as those utilised by Gandhi
against the British Empire during their colonisation of
India were not suitable against the brutal apartheid system.
Along with Nelson Mandela, he was a terrorist and a hero. He
is currently Minister of Intelligence and Deputy Minister of
Defence in South Africa.

The conference included some
other great speakers, including many intelligent and witty
Jewish lawyers fighting for the human rights of Palestinian
Arabs. The conference was quite a buzz and gave me real hope
that there is a growing campaign to increase awareness of
the plight of Arab Palestinians, and hence the prospect of
Arabs and Jews living side by side again in peace, stepping
back from the precipice of world war.

On the other hand
it’s extremely disheartening that so many intelligent people
are still unwilling to speak out against the crimes of
Israel and political Zionism for fear of being labeled
anti-Jew (or anti-Semitic as the misleading term goes). And
this because of the Nazi Holocaust. But some truths are so
obvious that they often remain unstated, which doesn’t help
the cause of understanding. As Alan Hart write’s in volume
one of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the
Jews:

One such unstated truth is
this: It was not the Arabs who slaughtered six million Jews,
it was Europeans in Europe. But it was the Arabs as a whole,
and the Arabs of Palestine in particular, who, in effect,
were pubished for a European crime.

In my analysis the
insufferable self-righteousness that is the hallmark of
Zionism is a mask for suppressed guilt on account of the
injustice done to the Palestinians and, also, fear rooted in
the past of the future.

One of Zionism’s greatest
achievements for the first five decades of Israel’s
existence was convincing the Western world that anti-Zionism
and anti-Semitism are the same thing. They are not.

As
Lenni Brenner, the anti-Zionist Jewish writer put it in
1983: Zionism is not now, nor was it ever, co-extensive with
either Judaism or the Jewish people.

I
remember when I was reasonably young and I was hearing a lot
about Israel and the Arab Palestinians on the television. At
the time I remember thinking to myself that these people
were all as bad as each other; always attacking and
counter-attacking each other. As a young ignorant mind this
is how it appeared to me through my television, but when my
curiosity got the better of me I eventually took just a
cursory look at the situation away from the television; what
struck me was the overwhelming injustice that had been dealt
to the Arab Palestinian people by way of dispossesion of
their land and their cruel oppression.

Subsequently I
remember debating the situation with someone and being
called anti-Semitic for my troubles. What was most
interesting, such was my ignorance at the time, is that I
didn’t even really know what a Jew was, or even what really
happened in the Nazi Holocaust, let alone why anyone would
want to be anti-Semitic.

So I was looking at the situation
as a young person can with truly fresh eyes for what it was.
Alas not any more. To this day I remember that and realise
how easy and unjust it is to demonise one’s opponent simply
by labeling them. For now I’ve come to an uneasy acceptance
that articulating anti-Zionist views and being labeled
anti-Semitic is part and parcel. For some Zionists even
writing that last sentence makes me an anti-Semite, or a new anti-Semite, as they call it.

One
day, I hope, reason will prevail. On both sides.

The
hollow rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad—that Israel must be wiped from the map—should
come as no surprise to anyone. This kind of damaging
rhetoric has been common place in Iran since the Islamic
Revolution of 1979. Twentysix years and now there’s a
commotion about it? This is just another notch in the
propaganda war to create a pretext for invading Iran. Many
are going to be sucked into this bullshit, just as they were
sucked into all the bullshit required to invade Iraq. And
we’ll be one more step closer to Armageddon. Great.

The
appalling comments on Israel made by Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Israel should be wiped off map, October
27) are both empty rhetoric and highly damaging to the
Palestinian cause. I believe we (Palestinian Muslims and
Christians) should always make a clear distinction between
our political struggle against institutionalised racism and
ethnic cleaning in Palestine-Israel and the fact that we and
the Israelis would, ultimately, have to live together as
equal citizens under some form of secular democracy - and
not wipe each other out.

Muslim fundamentalists
(Ahmadinejad included) have miserably failed to understand
the reality in historic Palestine: in the process of brutal
colonisation of the country, a Hebrew-speaking “nation” has
emerged, with its own distinct language, culture and
flourishing literature. There are 5-6 million
Hebrew-speaking Israelis and no one has the right to talk
about wiping them out.

Acknowledging the current
bi-national reality is something completely different from
legitimising the colonial process by which this reality has
come about. The fact that the Israelis are trying quietly,
but systematically (although not always successfully), on
the ground to do to Palestinians in the West Bank what
Ahmadinejad seems to suggest should be done to Israel should
only encourage us to seek an alternative vision, away from
political Zionism and Islamic
fundamentalism.

And to return to silly
rhetoric we have Tony Blair asking us if we can imagine a State
[that has the sentiment to wipe another from the map] having
nuclear weapons? Well we don’t need to imagine. We only need
to look across the map to Israel to find a country that is
founded on the displacement and oppression of another
people, is classified as an occupying power, is probably the
only country in the Middle East to possess a nuclear
arsenal, refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and has flouted international law for decades.

While I believe Ahmadinejad’s hollow rhetoric is damaging
I understand the anger and frustration of the Arabs. Their
Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine have been truly
fucked over by the inherent injustice and brutality that is
political Zionism.

Since
Israel’s inception in 1948, Palestinian towns have been
demolished, Arabic names replaced by Hebrew ones, the very
existence of the Palestinian people has been called into
question, and Israel has drawn up its own map based on
annexed territory and unpunished occupation. But of course,
Iran is the real threat to regional peace and stability.
Right?

In response to the challenges facing Scoop and the media industry we’ve instituted an Ethical Paywall to keep the news freely available to the public.
People who use Scoop for work need to be licensed through a ScoopPro subscription under this model, they also get access to exclusive news tools.

Joseph Cederwall: The corporate media sector seems unable to do anything to halt the raging dumpster fire of consolidation, layoffs and centralisation of content production. All this means we are increasingly seeing ‘news deserts’ appearing in local communities. Illustration by Paul Sahre.More>>

To the extent that solutions exist, they must be solutions that allow journalism to move outside of the broken system that has caused this situation. For this reason, a resurgence in more engaged and community focused local journalism offers hope for a way out of this situation. More>>

ALSO:

It is quite typical for Israeli politicians to carry out confrontational measures against Palestinians shortly before general elections are due. The nature of these measures is determined by the kind of political constituency that Israeli leaders aim to appease. More>>